Luciano Fabro
May 25th - June 30th 2001

Ogni ordine e contemporaneo di ogni altro ordine, quattro modi di esaminare la facciata del ss. Redentore a Venezia, 1972-73 (Every order is contemporaneous with every other order. Four ways of studying the façade of the Church of the Redentore in Venice, 1972-73)

On May 24, an installation of Luciano Fabro's work Ogni Ordine… will open at the Christine Burgin Gallery. The work consists of four large-scale printed works on paper depicting four possible arrangements of the architectural elements of Palladio's Church of the Redentore in Venice. Fabro's description of the work is as follows:

In the Convivio, Dante instructs one to use four methods in interpreting works of art: the literal, the allegorical, the moral and the anagogical. I have made this piece in such a way that it may be read simultaneously according to all four of these methods.

Every order is contemporaneous with every other order: I have translated spatial coincidence into temporal coincidence.

I have disassembled the three architectural orders on the façade of the Church of the Redentore as if Palladio had left the orders free, changing their positions from time to time. This variation is apparent from the proportions of the statues adorning the façade niches, which have been replaced with Van Eyck's Adam and Eve, who appear separated from one another; a man with a spade (Piero della Francesca), who is distracted by Canova's Venus; at the top in the triangle of ethics, El Greco's Christ pointing to Velasquez's Aesop; and, on the opposite point, a woman (Michelangelo) turning her back and walking away.

An abuse of the philological method in this interpretation of the façade of the Church of the Redentore.

No genuine love of order is possible without the denial of that order.

Every problem is a matter of free will.